


Rue

by JoAsakura



Series: The Language of Memory [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:20:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everyone has their own, personal death.</p><p>Angela and Jack disagree, Gabriel cooks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rue

"The simplest way I can put it is 'Optic Nerve Atrophy', I'm sorry, Jack." Angela ran a fingertip over the nearly-invisible port where Jack's Soldier:76 faceplate plugged into his skull. He closed his eyes at the touch and his scarred face dropped.

"How long before I'm completely dependent on the visor to fight?" He lifted his head again, squinting at her as she moved away.

"A month, maybe two. Your enhanced immune system's turned on the nerve itself. We didn't know exactly what the long term effects of the super soldier program would be and..." She set her scanner down harder than either expected. "Jack, I can't even replace them. I've run the simulations and.."

"Angie, it's fine." Jack slid off the exam table and pushed a pair of reading glasses up his nose. "The visor will serve just fine in combat. And losing my vision, it's not the end of the world. It could be a lot worse."

"So pragmatic." She turned and cupped his face. "You seem like a different man then when Winston first called us back together, Jack."

"I'm starting to believe in second chances again." He shrugged, pressing a hand over hers. "For Overwatch, for all of us, for..."

"For Gabriel." She finished, pulling her hands away. "Jack, I don't think it's wise for you to get so involved with Reaper."

"If you mean the soul eating thing, we've been talking about it. We're trying to figure it out. And I don't think he was behind Geneva. Angie, I'd forgotten what it was like to have him in my life and.."

"THAT IS NOT GABRIEL REYES!" She slammed her hands on the table, eyes welling up. "My god, Jack. I have been trying to find a way to tell you."

"Angela." Jack's voice dropped into his Soldier:76 growl, and she balled her hands up at her sides.

"When our headquarters exploded... I couldn't find you." She started.

"I woke up in Lucerne with half my head caved in." Jack began to pace. "The last thing I remembered was fighting with Gabriel."

"I found him. After I got myself into my Valkyrie suit - I was bleeding out, but I had to see who I could save. I found what was left of him. Whether he got caught in an explosion he set, or.. Or shielded you from it, I practically scraped up what was left of him with a spatula, Jack." Angela splayed her fingers on the counter. "He was barely alive. I thought I could save him."

"What did you do, Angela." Jack stood perfectly still, looking out the window, his back to her.

"I had developed what you might call a utility fog.. Biological nanomachines that could swarm in, repair major tissue damage. Rebuild limbs from the ground up." She said softly. "Only, the experimental changes that Gabriel, you, the other super soldiers went through. Somehow, it confounded the nanobots. And there was only the fog in a containment unit with Gabriel's.. With his remains. Months, until I realised that somehow? Somehow his consciousness had uploaded into the swarm. Had reprogrammed it. I didn't realise until it escaped."

"It." Jack turned to her.

"It's a nanomachine colony that simply thinks it's Gabriel Reyes." She spat out, but refused to meet his gaze. "Reaper is nothing more than that. A ghost in a billion tiny machines, Jack."

"And the souls?" He swallowed.

"Humans are simply a mess of chemical and electrical reactions. Reaper strips it's victims of whatever it needs to maintain system equilibrium." Angela scrubbed her hand across her face. "It's just getting raw materials."

"I've looked into his eyes, Angie. That's not a machine upstairs. It's Gabriel." Jack's hands spasmed and he shoved them into the pockets of his combat trousers. "You're wrong."

"I wish I were. You should get it out of here while you still can." She said, but the Soldier had already turned on his heel and stalked away. "Before it's too late."

~~

He was met by a scent, spicy and achingly familiar, as he made his way back to his quarters.

"McCree, I swear to god, this is not chili and it's not for.." Gabriel started, then turned. "Jack." He'd traded his Reaper armour for a black turtleneck and trousers. Black gloves to try and minimise accidental contact. To hide the shifting patches of decay.

"Pozole verde?" Jack kept his hands shoved in his pockets, afraid to see if they were shaking. "Your mom's recipe."

"Sort of. No epazote around these parts." Gabriel stirred the sauce. "I don't have to eat, so I haven't cooked anything in years, but you always liked my mother's food."

"It's not a special occasion, is it?" Jack sidled up next to Gabriel, then slid his arms around the other man's waist , pressing his face against Gabriel's back. "You're warm for a dead guy, you know that?"

"What did Ziegler say?" Gabriel didn't turn, simply stirred as Jack held him.

"I'm going to be blind in a couple of months. Our experimental upgrades will probably reject any type of optic nerve replacement. But the visor accesses the vision processing center of the brain, so I'm still going to be able to shoot a son of a bitch in the face if I have to."

Jack stiffened as he felt Gabriel's gloved hands close over his own. "Jack."

"It's not the end of the world, Gabi." He bumped him, and Gabriel turned off the stove, then turned in the embrace. "I'm serious."

"Since when did you start calling me Gabi again?"

"I'm sorry, Uncle Grimdark. You prefer that?" Jack pulled away, then padded over to the table to grab his own gloves. "Doesn't that have to simmer for a while?"

"Ok, Action Dad. At least that's what the junior varsity's been calling you." Gabriel snorted.

"So get your ass over here, *Reaper*." Jack ordered in his best command voice, gesturing to the small kitchen chair. He stepped aside to let the other man fold his bulk into it, then straddled his lap. This close, Jack could still see details. The way Gabriel's skin shifted occasionally, like it was trying to remember how to fit his skull. "What's the first thing you remember about when we met?"

"You said Good Morning to me in the worst fucking Spanish I had ever heard in my life. You spent all fucking night reading everyone's jackets." Gabriel traced his hands down Jack's back. "So I answered you."

"It took me six months before I realised what you said was that I was going to be sucking your dick by the end of the year, asshole." Jack ran a gloved thumb over a shuddering patch of grey on Gabriel's brown cheek.

"I wasn't wrong." Gabriel tugged him as close as he dared. "Jack..."

Jack pushed himself up, only to grind down against Gabriel's lap, watching a spark of startled red in the dark depths of his eyes. "You don't eat. You don't have a heartbeat... But you still get a hard on." He murmured, grinding down again as Gabriel groaned softly, fingers digging into Jack's rear.

"Maybe it's muscle memory, maybe it's psychosomatic. Maybe it's because you are the hottest old man in the room." Gabriel mused, meeting the motion. "Is this how it's gonna be, you an' me grinding like you're out behind your Daddy's barn with your first boyfriend?"

"If that's what it takes, pendejo." Jack cupped his face. "You're.. I don't care what you are, Gabriel. I'm just.. I'm.. I'm glad you're here."

"Careful. You keep talking to me like that, I'm going to stay, Soldier." Gabriel traced Jack's lips with his own gloved fingers. "Even after we figure out who set Overwatch up to die. We could end up trying to kill each other again."

"I can think of worse ways to go." Jack murmured. The room was still, the air heavy with the scent of spices and the strange, musty, burnt-metal odor of Reaper's flesh, and he shook his head, just a little, to clear Angela's words from it. "After all, not everyone gets their own personal grim reaper."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to hanche @ tumblr for their awesome Reaper as utility fog comic that helped me move on this idea!


End file.
